Reta Starting Dose: Gradual Ramp vs. Going Straight to 2 mg per Week
- Thread starter MarcTheAnimal
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bada bing
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Last Wednesday I took my 2nd Reta injection, at .6mg. Next Wednesday it goes up to 1.2mg. Tirz is already part of my routine at 4mg/week, and I'm running both together. My plan over the coming months is to push Reta higher while pulling Tirz lower. Since 2.5-3.0mg/week lines up neatly with the 15mg vials I've got, that's where I'll take Tirz down to. Reta, meanwhile, will climb as far as needed before any slow weight loss kicks in. Twelve months ago I finished a 55lb drop on Tirz, and since then I've held steady at 215lbs. My aim now is to come down to a final 200-205 lbs, and I'm 6'4". Once I'm there, I'll figure out whether Tirz or Reta becomes the compound I stick with for permanent maintenance, though my eventual preference is a single weekly injection of just 1 compound. I've got a good stock of both, so alternating every 6 months at goal is also on the table. Nothing settled yet.
BNLFL
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I probably only say that because neither my wife nor I ever had side effects of that kind. She did have a couple of days where she didn't go to the bathroom. We had just begun a diet, so there's no telling whether that played a role. On pin day, I got mild heartburn when going to bed. As for the sleep problems, I've had them, but the group who begins at .5mg reports getting those as well. Mine only showed up around the 3rd 6mg shot. My wife had no issues.
Hueco
Explorer
I'm following the dosing schedule from Lily's trial. Right now I'm in week 7, and this was my third injection at 4mg.
Side effects have been kind to me. During the first 4 weeks at 2mg I did have some mild nausea, anhedonia and poor sleep, but those have pretty much cleared up. There may still be a touch of very mild anhedonia, though I can't say for sure.
Should I handle 6mg as well as I'm handling 4mg, my plan is to move up to 9mg and then reevaluate.
Side effects have been kind to me. During the first 4 weeks at 2mg I did have some mild nausea, anhedonia and poor sleep, but those have pretty much cleared up. There may still be a touch of very mild anhedonia, though I can't say for sure.
Should I handle 6mg as well as I'm handling 4mg, my plan is to move up to 9mg and then reevaluate.
Notonthetrail
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A helpful thread for me. I have 1 day to go before I should have another 5 mg of Tirz. But I don’t have any, only Reta! Poor planning on my part. But it seems that starting slowly with either 0.5 mg Reta or 1.0 mg is the best plan.
Here's my approach and what worked in my case (just my own experience!):
Week 1: 0.5 mg
Week 2: 1 mg
Week 3: 1.5 mg
Week 4: 2 mg
I've dropped 6+ kg (94.9 -> 88.6 as of this morning), and I have zero side effects AT ALL.
My appetite only decreased slightly once I hit 1 mg, and the weight didn't start coming off until mid-week 2. Things have leveled out now; I drop roughly 300-400 grams every 2 days, which suits me fine.
My plan is to remain at 2mg since it seems to be doing the job. I can't eat the way I used to, but that's the whole point — I was putting away close to 3.5k kcal.
Week 1: 0.5 mg
Week 2: 1 mg
Week 3: 1.5 mg
Week 4: 2 mg
I've dropped 6+ kg (94.9 -> 88.6 as of this morning), and I have zero side effects AT ALL.
My appetite only decreased slightly once I hit 1 mg, and the weight didn't start coming off until mid-week 2. Things have leveled out now; I drop roughly 300-400 grams every 2 days, which suits me fine.
My plan is to remain at 2mg since it seems to be doing the job. I can't eat the way I used to, but that's the whole point — I was putting away close to 3.5k kcal.
BNLFL
Explorer
Once I got deep into the 6mg shots, my sleep turned to garbage. That hasn't shifted after 4/weeks of 8mg and now 2 weeks of 9mg. Waking at 4am has become my normal, though last night was actually decent sleep, and I was still up at 4am. Because of the heart meds I take, I sent a portal message to my cardiologist about 2 things I'd like to try. Nothing particularly potent, mind you.
Hueco
Explorer
Yeah, that tracks. Since 4mg still counts as "low," I figure a few of the sides will likely resurface to some degree. The odd part is that my sleep has been better than it has been in more than 10 years, and over the past month or so I can't recall ever waking up feeling tired.
One thing I should mention: ever since I began reta, I almost never sleep beyond the 6 hour point. If I really wanted to, I could drift back off, but my body simply wakes itself up after roughly 6 hours.
HARLEYV2
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Why would it behave so differently from Tirz? Based on what I've come across, the GLP and GIP thresholds are lower than Tirz. Glucagon release does happen, but it shouldn't cause GI problems the way GLP and GIP do. In this situation, the Glucagon is meant to burn fat. Does anyone else have thoughts?
HARLEYV2
Explorer
That takes some nerve!
BNLFL
Explorer
I've revised this using last week's numbers. Rather than relying on my memory, I went through my spreadsheet. This is pasted over from a different thread.
"I'll leave the 4/weeks 2mg figures alone — I dropped quite a bit, though it was probably water weight. On 4mg I shed 11lbs across 6 weeks. On 6mg I shed 10lbs across 6 weeks, but my sleep problems began later during that 6mg stretch. On 8mg I shed 13lbs across 6 weeks. Right now I'm in week two at 9mg and I'm nearly 2lbs down. Since 1/9/26 I'm down 52lbs."
LosBenetos
Explorer
Joining this conversation late, but I've got 6 months of experience with it. My first month was 2mg, which went smoothly, and after that I bumped things up by 2.5mg every 4 weeks.
These days I'm taking 7.5mg every 5 days. I'd been stuck at the same dose on a 7-day schedule for a month, and switching to the 5-day interval got things moving again.
So far I've shed 35 pounds, and my waist size has shrunk from 38 to 34. The gym is going great too - my lifts have gone up consistently the entire time I've been using Reta. At 254 pounds, I'm the lightest I've been in 5 years, and even back then I wore a 36 waist. Reta has given me noticeably better body recomp than I'd get without it (YMMV).
I still need to drop 24 pounds before I reach my target, and it seems doable.
These days I'm taking 7.5mg every 5 days. I'd been stuck at the same dose on a 7-day schedule for a month, and switching to the 5-day interval got things moving again.
So far I've shed 35 pounds, and my waist size has shrunk from 38 to 34. The gym is going great too - my lifts have gone up consistently the entire time I've been using Reta. At 254 pounds, I'm the lightest I've been in 5 years, and even back then I wore a 36 waist. Reta has given me noticeably better body recomp than I'd get without it (YMMV).
I still need to drop 24 pounds before I reach my target, and it seems doable.
Week 1 I began at 1mg, and then bumped up to 2mg weekly with split dosing. The main side effect I'm dealing with is a rise in heart rate. At 2mg I'm sitting around +10bpm. Week 5 might be when I move to 3mg, though I'm not convinced I'll do it. Weight loss hasn't been much, and at this dose my appetite is heavily suppressed, but I'm still getting my protein macros in and making it to the gym 3 days a week. More would be nice, but my recovery has been awful due to the higher heart rate and poor HRV overnight. Bevel Health, my AI coach, is a bossy bitch and steers me away from the gym on bad days...and from a recovery score standpoint I've had plenty of those. Even so, today marks 21 days in and I'm down 9 pounds, with 3 pound of muscle gain per my Morphoscan nova.
HARLEYV2
Explorer
That is awesome!
I'm hoping for results along those lines too. Saw my cardiologist earlier today, and everything checked out fine. That said, he wasn't enthusiastic about me beginning Reta. His preference was that I let his team oversee me on Tirz, but only if I use the official version costing $300-400 each month. I'll pass on that.
Whether you jump right in or ease upward is up to you, and it really hinges on how much risk you're willing to accept. Because I'd come across a lot of accounts of folks who pushed their dose up too fast, I chose the slow route. My reasoning: if the pounds accumulated over years, tacking on a couple more weeks to inch the dose upward wasn't worth stressing over.
Since the half-life sits at roughly 6 days, miscalculating that first dose can mean several days of feeling awful.
Every 2 weeks I stepped up: 0.5 mg → 1 mg → 2 mg → 3 mg → 4 mg, and then I landed on 5 mg as my maintenance amount. No side effects showed up for me, though food noise dropped away pretty much right from the start.
Right now my wife is in week 2 at 0.5 mg, and she's had a rough time with nausea and diarrhoea.
Since the half-life sits at roughly 6 days, miscalculating that first dose can mean several days of feeling awful.
Every 2 weeks I stepped up: 0.5 mg → 1 mg → 2 mg → 3 mg → 4 mg, and then I landed on 5 mg as my maintenance amount. No side effects showed up for me, though food noise dropped away pretty much right from the start.
Right now my wife is in week 2 at 0.5 mg, and she's had a rough time with nausea and diarrhoea.
BNLFL
Explorer
I only manage 6 hours of decent sleep, and that's the whole story. This pattern began during my final 6mg doses and has carried over to 9mg. My usual wake-up time falls somewhere between 4-5am.